Coldest July in Over 30 Years

 Global Cooling has officially begun in Ireland as July 2020 was one of the coldest in the last 30 to 40 years :

This is based on six different weather stations from all regions of the country, all showing divergences of at least one degree from the mean of 1981 to 2010, with Finner Camp in Donegal, showing the greatest divergence of 1.7 degrees. 

Of course, you will have noticed that July 2018 and 2019 were warmer but the magnitude of the divergence from the mean was greatest in 2020, double that of the others which makes July 2020 statistically significant : 

Negative Interest Rates - How They Came About

Negative interest rates are well and truly with us here in Ireland with the news that Bank of Ireland are to begin imposing negative interest rates on pension funds that deposit cash with them. This means pension funds holding cash will be hit on the double (also inflation).

Here is a quick summary of how negative interest rates came about. Many articles that you will have read in the media about negative rates don't fully explain how we have got here, so this could be the first such article.

The ECB gave the game away here : 

Meanwhile, the first-order and tangible effect of Negative Interest Rates Policy on financial stability has been that it has enhanced it by improving the sustainability of outstanding debt.

There is nothing sustainable about the mountains of debt piled up, it is not possible to improve the sustainability of colossal amounts of debt except by eradicating it and preventing it from happening again by implementing high interest rates . Negative interest rates are actually doing the opposite - they help create new debt by making it so cheap. 

So, the main reason why negative interest rates are here is because spending is out of control in the EU and in Ireland and we are more reliant on debt than ever before.

The other main reason is because of Quantitative Easing (QE), or money printing. As you can see in the figure below, after QE, the commercial bank such as Bank of Ireland or AIB, holds more reserves with the central bank. The central bank has been charging negative interest rates for holding these reserves, so the commercial bank has no choice but to pass this on to consumers.   

 

So as economies in Europe become increasingly dependent on QE, the central bank will come under pressure to charge for holding these higher reserves, and the commercial banks will have no choice but to pass on these costs to consumers. 

This process of never ending debt and continuous QE is a feedback cycle, whereby more QE allows governments to borrow even more by offloading longer term bonds into the market. As you can see from the above, the pension fund sells their government bonds to the central bank to get the QE process going.

Negative interest rates are the direct consequence of this continuous cycle of QE and debt that has been the central policy of the ECB since 2014. Only recently are customers feeling the pinch from negative rates so we are in uncharted territory as to what will happen. But my prediction is that they are the harbinger of a very bad recession and widespread poverty. As it becomes clear that no real production is taking place and the high consumption levels are a mirage.

There is also a calamity coming when people retire, as savings are no longer being encouraged  and the alternative of investing in pensions are now being hit. The days of high interest rates are over but that also means prudence is over and that can only end one way. 

  

Saving the Salmon Will Require a Military Solution

Mayo fisheries officers claim they were taken out to sea against their will | Western People

Salmon poaching is understood to have “sky-rocketed” since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, according to Francis O’Donnell, regional director of Inland Fisheries Ireland.

Mr O’Donnell told The Irish Times that 1.5km of illegal drift net was seized off Inishbofin in just one case last Wednesday, even though drift net fishing for salmon had been outlawed in 2007.

 Salmon may well become extinct within our lifetime. International conferences where people chat about climate change over coffee will most definitely not save the mythical Irish fish. Climate change is an international diagnosis of local problems caused by the same International policies. It is like putting the fox in charge of saving the chickens. European Union fishing policies have devastated salmon and other fish stocks in Irish waters.  Local Irish poachers, if allowed to continue, will seal the fate of the salmon, as they net the fish returning to spawn. 

Meanwhile, Irish national media outlets and NGOs continue to ignore the real environmental problems on the ground ensuring the actual perpetrators are never dealt with. It is only by reading local newspapers that you can find out what is actually causing the environmental destruction. The solution is too much for most "environmentalists" to comprehend, it requires protection of salmon at a military scale, calling in the Navy if needs be. Fighting climate change is all about wagging the finger at all you bad people driving cars and eating meat, guilt-tripping you into making you pay more taxes - easy to do from the comfort of your news office. Saving the salmon will require military operations along our coast. And so in modern liberal Ireland, the easy solution will always be taken, and that means more finger pointing by the luvvies and the end of the salmon.